N a z a r e t h – Through their pastoral activities following the bloody attacks in July in Norway, which left 77 dead, the churches in that country have been strengthened. This was emphasized by the Secretary General of the Norwegian Baptist Union, Terje Aadne (Stabekk). As he reported at the Council of the European Baptist Federation (EBF), September 21-25 in Nazareth, churches learned that it is important to be close to the people. Only then can they succeed in being light and salt in society. In addition, the attack also showed that Christians need not fear other religious groups, for example Muslims, but can experience fellowship with them. Dialog with these groups has improved in quality. In Norway, there are 89 Baptist churches, with over 5,600 members.

In Nazareth, representatives from numerous Baptist Unions reported on encouraging experiences from their work. The Bishop of the Baptist Union in Latvia, Peteris Sporgis (Riga), was excited about camps for young people. If you address 15 to 18 year old teenagers as adults and give them responsibility for missionary work, they react in a fully responsible manner. Sporgis is sure, that many incrusted structures within his Union were broken through by these hands-on spiritual camps, which included up to 30 participants. Eighty-six churches with 6,500 members belong to the Latvian Baptist Union.

The head of the Church Services Commission of the French Baptist Union, Pierre Jeuch (Paris) designated his homeland, in the missionary sense, as “unreached”. Only 0.7 percent of all inhabitants are evangelical Christians. The National Council of Evangelicals in France has now launched a new initiative. For every 10,000 inhabitants, a new evangelical church is to be planted: “We need 4,000 new churches – at this point, there are 2,000,” said Jeuch. He estimates that it will take at least 20 years to implement this project. However, he was sure that it could be successfully implemented, since 70 percent of all evangelicals belonging to this council support it. A longstanding conflict between evangelicals and charismatics has finally been set aside. The Baptist Union in France consists of 130 churches 6,500 members.

In Spain, evangelicals want to open their homes to invite friends and acquaintances to a TV evangelization campaign December 16-18. The program has been developed by the Billy Graham Society in the United States, reported Baptist pastor Jorge Pastor (Denia). About 50,000 families are expected to take part in the project. Pastor was delighted to report that his Union is growing. In the past year, the number of baptisms has risen four percent, to 500. Ninety-five churches with 11,000 members belong to the Spanish Baptist Union.

Kjell Bonerfält and Anders Blaberg, representatives of the Swedish church and missions movement Interact (Örebro), reported on how two churches in that country had been filled with new life. In 1995, at the Immanuel Church in Malmö, founded in 1866, only 25elderly church members were still meeting. Since then, it has grown to over 300 members because a young pastor saw to it that the church opened up to those with immigrant backgrounds. A similar development has taken place in the Husby Church in Stockholm, which since 2002 has doubled its attendance to 100. Today, the largest congregation of Afghan Christians in the world meets in this church. In the past, Swedes were engaged as missionaries in world missions; today world missions is taking place before their very door. The missions and church movement Interact includes 314 churches with 31,000 members.

The Baptist Union in the Ukraine supports the smaller Baptist Unions of the former Soviet Union in their missionary work, reported Igor Bandura (Kiev), vice-president of the Ukrainian Baptist Union. Sixty young Baptists spent between two and four weeks during the summer holidays doing missions work among Muslims in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. There are also plans to extend this work to Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. More and more Baptists from the Ukraine are also active as full-time missionaries. Recently, Ukrainian missionaries have taken up work in Egypt, Tajikistan, and Papua New Guinea. Over 2,400 churches with 131,000 members belong to the Ukrainian Baptist Union.